Saw this last night in 3D and really liked it. There are quite a few changes from the book but I was mostly okay with them. There's a whole extra villain introduced into the movie that's not in the book and the Dwarves are a little more bad-ass than in the book.

I thought that the higher frame rate was supposed to cut down on motion blur, but I noticed a few placed where the blur was terrible; some of the beginning scenes in Dale, during their run through the Goblin layer in the mountian and one other that I'm forgetting now. Otherwise, I thought the film looked gorgeous and the 3D made some things really pop. Jackson also, IMO, did a good job in letting the 3D enhance things and didn't play it as a gag so he could throw stuff "out" of the screen at you, sort of like how Cameron treated Avatar, but unlike how pretty much everyone else treats it.

There's a decent article over on The Daily Beast pointing out 19 changes from the book to film. I think the writer is nitpicking on a couple of them, meaning yes, they are changes, but they're so minor I probably wouldn't think to point them out, and I think she missed the point on at least one of them...still a good article, though.

E...

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There's a decent article over on The Daily Beast pointing out 19 changes from the book to film. I think the writer is nitpicking on a couple of them, meaning yes, they are changes, but they're so minor I probably wouldn't think to point them out, and I think she missed the point on at least one of them...still a good article, though.

E...

Thanks, that was super interesting. Most of that stuff does seem pretty minor, but I don't like the insertion of Radagast, the Elf-Witch, and the Necromancer. Those characters only merited fleeting references in the books. (Well, Radagast and the Necromancer anyway) To say nothing of whatever Evangeline Lilly is supposed to be doing there.

I think they need to be careful about how much they tweak Thorin too. You can't make him too "noble" at the outset because it just rings false when he takes that darker turn in the latter half of the book.

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but I don't like the insertion of Radagast, the Elf-Witch, and the Necromancer. Those characters only merited fleeting references in the books. (Well, Radagast and the Necromancer anyway) To say nothing of whatever Evangeline Lilly is supposed to be doing there.

The Necromancer is an important part of the Lord of the Rings. He's made in passing reference in the Hobbit for sure, but his inclusion in the movies will be the second link to the LOTR trilogy (aside from the One Ring). The story of the necromancer is included in the appendices of the LOTR books as I recall.

I was happy to see Radagast fleshed out... not sure if I love how PJ actually fleshed him out though.

Saw this yesterday morning in 3D and really enjoyed it. I haven't read the books nor seen the original LOTR since they hit DVD but I felt like this one went by really fast. Maybe it's because I'm used to 3 hour movies now?

I did feel like the midle was pretty boring though... from when they go to the Elf town all the way to when Bilbo meets Gollum.

Speaking of which, another lights out performance by Andy Serkis... Gollum was downright scary.

Somehow I think I'm going to hate this movie. I hate it when movies are long just to be long. For example Titanic. They spent almost an hour of pointless chases up and down the ship that could have easily been done in 15 minutes. The Hobbit sounds a lot like that. I think if it really takes 45 minutes just to get out of Bags End someone should have hired a better editor.

I'm sure that I'm going to be in the minority for saying this, but I wasn't overly impressed with this one as I was with the LOTR trilogy. Yes, the scenery was great and the costumes were great, and it's great that they finally brought the Hobbit to the big screne. But other than Andy Serkis' performance (which was the best part of the movie IMO), that's about it... It just didn't have the same affect on me that the LOTR trilogy did when I watched it. There just wasn't that 'real' feeling to this movie. There was a lot more CGI feeling to this than I was expecting.

Maybe it was because I watched Fellowship while I was waiting in the theater for one of the midnight shows. Maybe it was because I only saw it in 2D. I'm hoping that it's just because I was over tired that I'm not gushing about it. I'm planning another 3D viewing with a friend next week, so hopefully I'll have a different opinion afterward.

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This was no LOTR, but it was nice to see some of the characters back from the original trilogy. My viewing went all black and the power went out so they had to restart the movie a couple of times over...first time that's ever happend to me at a theatre.

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I'm sure that I'm going to be in the minority for saying this, but I wasn't overly impressed with this one as I was with the LOTR trilogy. Yes, the scenery was great and the costumes were great, and it's great that they finally brought the Hobbit to the big screne. But other than Andy Serkis' performance (which was the best part of the movie IMO), that's about it... It just didn't have the same affect on me that the LOTR trilogy did when I watched it. There just wasn't that 'real' feeling to this movie. There was a lot more CGI feeling to this than I was expecting.

I agree with you. Waaaaay too long, too. I thought Martin Freeman as Bilbo was very good, though. Just okay, in my book, which makes it a bit of a disappointment compared to the first LOTR trilogy, which I thought was wonderful all the way through.

Agree with some of the criticism, but taking all 6 movies into account I can see what he was trying to do. The money grab to go to three movies really shows here. Two sequences could have been easily axed...the Elrond/Galadriel/Saruman stuff as well as the long long Hobbit hole scenes. I still liked it. My boys loved it. Agreed that it doesn't touch LOTR but what can? In general The Hobbit as a book is vastly different as well as not being as good of a story as LOTR.

48fps popped for me...I didn't even really notice it and it was super duper sharp.

The reviews of the 48 FPS presentation have been mixed. People seem really accustomed to 24 FPS projection, and it's really a result of their eyes having been trained by a lifetime of movie-going.

The general sentiment I've been reading in articles is that the first 30 minutes tend to be an acclimation period. And after that a lot of viewers are able to forget about the higher frame rate & resolution, and finally focus on the story.

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Saw this last night, and was disappointed compared to how I felt after watching LOTR. I give Peter Jackson a tremendous amount of credit for those screen adaptations. It really brought my own visualizations of the stories to the screen. The Hobbit...not so much. Some of the changes in what characters said and did, impact the effect of the story to me. All of the extra character additions were not needed. It quickly became evident to me that this has become more of a LOTR prequel than it is a definitive version of the Hobbit. Which is a shame because it is a great book standing on its own.

Got spared having to take my girls out to see it when a screener arrived at my door on Friday. We watched it pretty much immediately. 24fps looked so much better, even on a DVD copy at home. My girls loved it.